Congress Daily AM: McConnell Fighting For Immigration Amendment Votes

Congress Daily AM

June 5, 2007

JUDICIARY

McConnell Fighting For Immigration Amendment Votes

Senate Majority Leader Reid hopes to wrap up work on a sweeping immigration bill this week, but Minority Leader McConnell said Monday that he would only agree to such a timetable if a sufficient number of amendments receive floor votes.

When the Senate debated an immigration bill last year, lawmakers cast 33 votes on various amendments before final passage. A McConnell aide indicated Republicans are looking for a similar number of votes before agreeing to a final vote this year.

The aide said McConnell is willing to accept a cloture motion to end debate as long as some of the roughly 80 amendments filed can be considered as "pending" after a cloture vote.

Senators who negotiated the compromise bill, dubbed the "grand bargain," plan to meet this morning to discuss strategy. The "grand bargainers" also want to meet with their respective caucuses before tackling more hot-button topics on the floor, according to a Democratic aide.

The Senate has scheduled morning votes on two less controversial amendments, a proposal by Majority Whip Durbin on recruiting U.S. workers and one by Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., to ensure that green card applicants who entered the country illegally are not given preference under a merit-based processing system over those who have remained outside the country.

Meanwhile, the high-tech and manufacturing industries have stepped up their lobbying for an amendment that has yet to be introduced that would create a parallel employer-based green card system to operate in tandem with the bill's "point system" method of selecting who is allowed permanent residency.

The amendment, by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., also would create exemptions to the annual cap for H-1B visa applicants. It is sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Judiciary Chairman Leahy and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

The National Association of Manufacturers sent a letter to senators Monday saying votes on the amendment would be considered "key votes" in NAM's voting record for the 110th Congress. Other business groups didn't go quite that far. A separate letter sent Monday from a broad coalition of associations, including NAM, "strongly" urged senators to support the amendment.

Its signatories included the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Information Technology Industry Council and the Business Roundtable.

California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Monday also signaled his support for a proposal similar to the Cantwell amendment. "I strongly urge the Senate to retain an employment-based application process and consider authorizing a smaller points-based pilot program prior to any wider implementation," he said in a letter to Reid, McConnell and California Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.

Republican Conference Chairman Jon Kyl of Arizona, a key figure in the negotiations, said Monday that Cantwell's amendment would be a deal killer. "This is a green card that the employer applies for and says to a prospective employee from another country, 'if you'll come work for me for five years and take substandard wages, I will give you a green card at the end of that five-year period,'" he said. "That would break the deal."

Kyl said two other amendments on family immigration also would cause him to drop his support for the bill, one by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., to move forward the cutoff date for current green card applicants and one by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., to exempt spouses and minor children of green card holders from numerical caps on permanent visas.

If those amendments are adopted, "I certainly would not support the legislation. I would do everything I could to get it defeated," Kyl said.

Menendez took the floor shortly after Kyl, saying he takes offense at Kyl's characterization of his proposal as a "killer" amendment. "A killer amendment is offered by someone who wants to see the bill not pass," he said.

By Fawn Johnson